


Letters

by shortystylee



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff and Smut, Future Fic, Lord gendry baratheon, Post Season 8, Season 8 mostly compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-09
Updated: 2019-05-10
Packaged: 2020-02-29 00:14:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18767254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shortystylee/pseuds/shortystylee
Summary: When Arya agrees to teach Gendry to read, she doesn't expect to start receiving letters from him.Especially not love letters.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm writing this after the S8E4 proposal rejection, but it's assuming that sometime after season 8, they marry and are living in Storms End, with Gendry learning how to be a Lord and Arya being his not-so-ladylike wife. I've left all that happened between the proposal and the start of this story purposefully vague.
> 
> Also, I almost never write anything other than modernAU, so this being in-universe is pretty different for me. Here's hoping people like it.

Arya takes a drink from the cup on the table beside their bed. She can feel his eyes on her, roaming her naked body as if his hands weren’t on her minutes ago. She raises an eyebrow at him, and he just smiles that smug smile of his. The cup emptied, she pulls the covers back and rejoins him in bed. Their bed is covered with finely woven cloths and thin furs, so different from what she’s used to. She doesn’t need it, but hell if she’ll complain.

“So,” he starts, “I’ve been thinking…”

Interested, she leans on her side, head propped up in her hand. “Oh, you’ve been thinking? ‘Bout what?” she teases him. After all these years, it’s still one of her favorite hobbies. “Lordly things?”

“Arry—”

“Like taxes and castle repairs, or grand feasts and tourneys?”

“Ar—”

“Ya know, I could go for a good tourney. I think I’d be particularly excellent in the melee.”

“Arya, please.” That stops her. He uses her full name only on three occasions: when he’s deep inside her, like just ten minutes earlier, whispering to her as he sends her over cliffs she never knew existed, in the presence of the other Lords and Ladies of Westeros, and… now. When he needs her to know that he is dead serious about what comes out of his mouth next. Sometimes she has a good idea of what he’s going to say - he can be easy to read like that, but usually their day or what’s been happening around Storms End gives him some sort of clue. Right now, she’s got nothing.

“Alright, I’m listening.”

“I want you to teach me to read. And write,” he adds. “I’m supposed to be the lord of the Stormlands, I can’t even read the ravens we get, or the lists of our food stores. We could be damn near close to starving and I’d never know.”

“You’ve surrounded yourself with good men. Good counsel. Myself. We all can—”

“But I can’t! Most of our servants can read and write, but not their lord. The boy who works with the horses? Benson? I found him the other day reading a book while he took his lunch and he can’t be more than two and ten!” Arya doesn’t bother to say she learned to read at seven. “I feel inadequate, not good enough for my people, not good enough for…”

_For you._ She knows his thoughts, as well as she knows her own. And she knows that the quick flick of his eyes to her flat stomach means he’s thinking of reading stories to the sons and daughters she says she’ll be ready for some day.

“You really want this?”

“I do. Been thinking a lot about it lately.”

“And you’d like me to teach you? The least patient person ever? Not Maester Willard?”

“I’ve known you for seven years, and if I don’t know that my own ladywife is impatient,” he pauses to watch her sour reaction to _ladywife_ , which he uses purposefully, “Then I’m the stupidest person in the seven kingdoms.”

“You are stupid, stupid.” She pushes herself up on her hand, now at the same height as him with how he’s propped himself up against the headboard. This is supposed to be a serious conversation, yet his eyes still linger on her bare chest. _Typical_. “But tomorrow, after breakfast, we’ll start on your letters.”

XxXxX

**Six months later**

It had only taken a few days for Gendry to get a hang of the actual letters, and a week after that for the sounds they could make. Arya was by far not the best teacher, and thankfully she’d accepted some teaching pointers from the maester. But as each week passed, Gendry’s understanding continued to improve. They’d moved from reading picture books and children’s stories, and now he’s proved himself capable of reading almost all the ravens scrolls that the Maester received. His writing was improving, his eye for detail from smithing made his letters neater than Arya’s.

Sure, there had been frustrating times, and there still were, but it was worth it, to see how proud of himself he was.

******

“I can do this, Arry.” He looks up at her, eyes bloodshot from staring at the book for so long. She never insinuated he couldn’t do it, he’s trying to convince himself.

“I know you can.” She walks around to the side of the table, sits down on the bench, right leg against his left as she leans into him and rests her head on his shoulder. Arya knows that this amount of contact between people of their station is inappropriate, she can’t recall ever seeing her parents close like this. But this is _their_ castle, and _their_ rules, and they’d lost each other and found each other and survived the Great Wars, and damn anyone who would think to tell her how to live. “I heard the Maester say apparently this kinda stuff just sinks in children’s heads, that's why they teach ‘em so young. Probably how I learned Braavosi so quick. He says it’ll be harder for you since you’re older.”

“Ser Davos learned how to read, and was a hell of a lot older than I am!” His voice is loud enough to be angry, but it just sounds resigned.

“Hey, I heard that,” Davos calls out from across the room, having just walked by in the nick of time to hear Gendry.

Despite being not just a Lord, but a knight and the Lord Paramount of the Stormlands, when he hears Davos’ voice from across the room, his face pales like a child about to get reprimanded by their father. Arya nearly falls backwards off the bench, laughing until her stomach hurts and she’s given herself hiccups.

******

The first time she sees the rolled up parchment on her writing desk, she’s not sure who it’s from. Most of the staff would deliver any messages personally, not simply leave them where anyone could take them. She recognizes Gendry’s seal when she nears, a bull’s head stamped in Baratheon yellow wax.

Arya realizes something when she picks it up - this is the first time he’s written anything, to anyone, that wasn’t for an assignment her or Davos gave him. They’d had him write a few ravens to Sansa, since Arya has informed her earlier they were teaching him, but this was special. _What could he have written? We are around each other over half the day, we share the same bed, for gods’ sake._ It makes her all the more curious.

Arya hops up on the desk, letting her legs dangle off the edge. She peels it apart carefully, knowing that if this is his first time writing, they may want to keep it.

_My dearest, Arya -_

The salutation at the beginning doesn’t strike her as odd. He’s had so many meetings with the septa on court etiquette, it’s going to have to come out sometime. And, she’ll admit, being called ‘dearest’ is not the worst pet name she can think of. After all, at some points in her life she was called Arya Horseface or Lumpyhead… she can live with _dearest._

It starts off and seems like a thank you, for all the lessons, which is unnecessary, but he thanks her all the same.

And then it changes. He tells her how he’s so damn lucky to have her, and how every day he gets to wake up with her in his arms feels like a gift from the gods. How he’s certain those gods _do_ exist because he found her after so many years. That she’s everything. How her laugh is infectious and how much he loves watching her in the yard, training and sparring, her feet light on the ground and nimble, sword arm quick, and most certainly enjoys the lovely flushed skin of her cheeks. How she undoes the top few ties on her tunic, exposing the pale skin of her neck that reminds him of the snows in the godswood. How she fits perfectly in his arms, her body so petite yet so strong and capable. The scars that dot her body, her calloused hands, and the soft parts of skin he finds, hidden behind her knees and at inside of her wrist.

“Seven hells,” she swears aloud though there’s no one around to hear. “This is…”

“Is everything okay in here, Arya?” She looks up to see her handmaid, Millie, lingering in the doorway, and she pushes off the tabletop. Her outburst a few seconds ago must’ve been louder than she’d thought.

“Everything is fine.” She rolls and unrolls the parchment nervously. “Would you mind running down to the kitchens to see if they’ll make that honeyed bread with supper?”

Once she’s gone, Arya reads through his words a second time, and then a third.

_He wrote me a fucking love letter._

XxXxX

Arya finds that she is out of sorts for the rest of the day. She’s never received a love letter before, but she’s not daft. That’s clearly what it is. Even Ser Brienne had been courted as a young lady, but not her. Not when you spend those years across the Narrow Sea and then back in Westeros trying not to die and killing beings that were already dead. Not that she wanted to be courted. Instead, she’s been able to figure out this relationship with Gendry on her own terms. _If anything, I courted him,_ she laughs, thinking back to that first night in the forge. _No featherbed for me, indeed._

That night she thought they’d be dead come morning, and used that as an excuse to proposition him. The moment he returned her kiss, she realized she’d been lying to herself. _Who was I trying to fool?_ This… this stubborn boy who had turned into a stubborn man, who still wanted to be part of her pack, who tempered her and called her on her shit, who wanted her like she wanted him… that was what she would live for. When all of this horror was over, she’d vowed that she would live.

Arya knows full well how much Gendry loves her, he’s always been a man of action instead of words, until now. And it’s all she can think about the whole day. Half paying attention to the new wards she’s training. Spacing out when the head stonemason asks her about the repairs to the north tower. Walking into rooms, forgetting why she’s in there.

Septa Lynette even asked if she needed to call Maester Willard, she was acting so off.

_Bloody hells, pull yourself together, Arya._

Later that evening, she joins him in their room for the first time since breakfast. He’d been out in the village with his counselors overseeing the progress on a new grain mill until late in the day and took his supper at a pub in town. It’s rare for them to eat apart, but she’s thankful for it that evening, having allowed her to avoid being awkward around him in front of everyone. She finds him at his desk, writing with painstaking care in a large bound book of blank paper - ever since he’s been able to, he’s taken to recording even the most minute details of his days.

“How was your day?” he asks, looking up from the book when he hears he walk in. “Anything interesting happen?” There’s a playful lilt to his voice that she instantly recognizes.

“Very interesting.” Arya shrugs out her day clothes, finding the freshly washed pair of sleep pants folded on a stool next to her wardrobe. “Would you believe that someone wrote me a love letter? Just left it on my desk and didn’t even sign their name.”

It’s a good thing Gendry is more at home swinging a hammer in the forge, and has no dreams of being an actor in those plays they put on down in the village square, because even the youngest of children wouldn’t believe his over-the-top feigned surprise. “You trying to tell me that someone in my castle is trying to steal my wife away? I’ll have them know I wedded you, fair and square.” He points a finger at her for emphasis. “There was a bedding and everything.”

“Are you referring to how you pulled me into the wine cellar on the walk back from the Godswood and we were late to our own feast, or the actual bedding, where Tormund and Podrick hauled me up to our chambers because Jon couldn’t bring himself to think about little sister laying with his favorite smith?”

“Both, when you put it that way.”

She just rolls her eyes. _Knew he’d say that._ "Really though, what’s going on? Are you trying to court me? I'm not going anywhere, so what's the point in this letter?"

He shrugs, but doesn't answer her. Arya finishes tying her sleep pants, crosses the room and makes her way around to his side of the desk. She cocks her head to the side and he gets the idea, scooting the chair backwards to make room for her on his lap.

"You tryin' to make me swoon?” She leans into him, presses a kiss into his throat before resting her head on his shoulder. “I'm no blushing maid, you've made sure of that."

"I need to do something to keep in practice, and I can only write so many letters to your sister before even she’ll tire of me.” He moves his arm so it’s around her waist, as he starts to work at untucking her shirt. “Who knows, maybe I _will_ make you blush one of these days."

"Hah, I'm sure." She leans forward, unfolds the paper, and puts it in the table in front of him, pointing at a word in the middle. "You spelled 'treasured' wrong."


	2. Chapter 2

**Three Weeks Later**

 

She’s long stopped correcting his spelling and grammar, there’s no longer a need. He’s winning at that aspect, but what he dislikes now is that he’s losing on the little challenge between them. He’s written three letters by now, with each more flowery and embellished than his first one, but not a one of them has made her crack. Gendry knows she’s not the type to be swayed by romantic words, but he’d hoped that there’d be something in one of his letters that could make her blush, but nothing has worked so far.  

 

It’s why he finds himself in the library. He’d ignored its existence for so long, since what good was a room filled with books to a guy who can’t read? But with the counsel bothering him about meeting with new Ser Whats-His-Face from Wherever-Castle, and the feast for him, and… well, he’d taken an alternative route from the yard back up to his chambers, which happened to pass by the library. 

 

There has to be books in there that could help. Those romantic escapades filled with dashing knights on horseback saving maidens, whispering words of love and devotion and promises to their lady. His battle plan has been that the more over the top he can get, the more like he is to win. His words he writes are true - he does love the way her pale skin flushes pink when she fights - and he would love to make her flush that same way with his words.

 

“Lord Baratheon, how may I help you?”

 

It’s a boy, maybe six and ten, pushing a pile of books on a cart. He realizes that he must look thoroughly lost. “I’m sorry, but you are?”

 

“I’m Lukas. The librarian.” 

 

_ Of course, we have a librarian.  _

 

“That’s right. Forgive me, it’s been quite a long day.”

 

“It’s not even noontime yet, milord.”

 

“Exactly, and already too long. You can help me though. I’m looking for…” His voice drifts off, loathe to admit what he thinks will help.  _ Gods, I’m supposed to make her blush and here I am, like some maiden giving away her favor. _ “I’m looking for the romance section.” He rushes the words out so fast they’re practically smashed together. 

 

Lukas is not ruffled in the least. “Right this way. We do have a large section for that genre, what with your uncle Lord Renly having lived here last.” He follows Lukas through the rows of bookshelves, until finally he stops at a row about halfway across the room. “Ah, yes. Here we are. This whole bookcase.” He points down the long row of shelves. “Both sides. Just help yourself, and when you're done you can have someone bring them back to my desk.”

 

Lukas leave him then, and he starts looking at the titles.  _ The Blue Knight’s Lady. A Maiden and a Minstrel. Two Moons in Dorne. Fifteen Short Tales of Love & Beauty. _

 

Alright, he's got no clue what titles to choose.  _ More the merrier. _ He grabs a handful of books at random and heads back up to his study, knowing he’s got a couple of hours without Arya that day - she headed out to the woods at daybreak for a hunt. 

 

However, after three hours of flipping through the books he’d lugged out of the library, reading words and words of romantic sentiment, he still doesn’t think there’s anything here that is different enough from what he’s already tried. 

 

He closes the latest one,  _ A Maiden and a Minstrel, _ and stacks it on the pile of the others that were of no help.  _ One left _ . He pulls it in front of him and opens to a random page, not bothering to even check the title, and starts to read. 

 

A page or two in, he realizes something odd - there’s no mention of a princess, or a young high born lady, or a maiden waiting to be swept off her feet. In fact, the two main characters appear to be a handsome brown-haired knight, excellent at the joust and known for great horseback skills throughout the land, and his new squire, a green boy of seven-and-ten, with blazing blue eyes and the longing to tend to all his Lord’s needs. At first, he wonders if this book was put away in the wrong section until...

 

_ Oh.   _

 

_ Oh, hells. If I’m not the biggest idiot. _ He laughs aloud at himself. He knows about Renly, his preferences, his love for the Knight of Flowers, so of course there’d be those sorts of love stories amongst all the rest. 

 

And since Gendry has never felt the luxury to judge other’s relationships, and because he figures it can’t hurt, he keeps reading. A lot of it is the same flamboyant language as the other stories, just with a change in the pronouns, but then --

 

_ Seven hells, now that’s… detailed. _ He can’t stop reading over the explicit details about exactly how this squire shows loyalty, as they call it, to his knight. It’s all about slowly peeling away armor, and kisses pressed into newly exposed skin, rough calloused hands, and how pretty the young man looks knelt down between the knight’s legs.

 

In an instant, Gendry’s eyes go wide and he pushes his chair backwards, the legs scraping on the stone floor. 

 

_ Maybe I’m going about the letter writing business the wrong way. _

 

XxXxX 

 

One morning, like three others in the weeks prior, Arya finds yet another sealed letter on her desk. It’s no longer a surprise, really. She’s got things to take care of that morning, so instead of sitting down to read it, she grabs it and tucks it into a pocket. Later, during lunch, when all the boys she’s training are eating and play-fighting off on one side of the yard, she finds the time to read through this most recent letter. 

 

It’s nothing too different from any of the others. Halfway through, she hears a commotion and then someone yelling out, “Lord Baratheon, good afternoon.”

 

When she looks up from her spot on the ground, she sees him entering the yard through the large gateway that leads to the stables. He’s not dressed lavishly, like other Southern Lords she knows, but his clothes are well-made, and fit him properly, not the rags they wore as children. He does cut an impressive figure, with his height and those obvious Baratheon features, the broad chest and muscled arms obvious through his clothing. She watches as he makes his way through the yard, shaking hands and chatting with people as he goes - he’s fitting into the Lord Baratheon role better every day, at least where the personality and likability comes in. Gendry must feel her watching him, he looks her way and immediately locks eyes with her, smiles a lopsided smile that’s been making her stomach flutter since before she understood it.  _ I am his, and he is mine. _

 

But then, as he turns and directs his attention towards someone else, a thought flashes across her mind that makes her heart squeeze tightly inside her chest. For so long, he always had felt inadequate, unsure of himself and his position because he came from nothing, and though she hopes with everything they’ve been through he’d know for certain of how important he is to her, that she keeps choosing to live for him… maybe there's still doubt? Could that be where these letters are coming from? 

 

_ Fuck _ . She hopes that isn’t true.  _ It can’t be? _ Not after everything they’ve been through. A part of her wants get up, march across the yard, and make sure there is no miscommunication going on between them, but she knows she can’t do that. He seems busy, and she has to get back to teaching a bunch of ten year old boys know how to properly notch a bow. 

 

XxXxX

 

“You don’t… you don’t doubt my feelings for you? Or the other way around?” she asks later that evening. He looks up right away from what he’s working on, sitting up against the headboard of their bed, the spot he seems to like best. Arya pads across the stone floor barefoot, quietly, as if no one’s there, and sits cross-legged in front of him in bed, the long tunic of his she wears hiking up high on her thighs. He hasn’t replied yet, so she continues. “I know very well of your feelings for me. And you know that I love you, that you make me want to continue being Arya Stark.”  _ Your Arya. _ “If you're trying to prove your love to me with these letters, I'm already well aware of it.”

 

“Do you want me to stop?” She can hear it plain in his voice that he doesn't want to. 

 

“If this is something you enjoy, I won’t take that from you. But you know, I’m not the type to be swayed by words like these, however pretty and favorable they may be. I’m not my sister.”

 

He sits up straighter then, strong hands around her forearms and he pulls her closer and closer until she’s in his lap, raising an eyebrow at him. “Don’t worry about that, milady.” He says it in that low, hushed tone of voice she understands well by now. Where  _ milady  _ doesn’t mean lady, it means wolf girl, and Arya Stark, and  _ mine _ . His eyes meet hers, that stormy blue she’s found solace in since they met, and he chooses his next words carefully, says them with a conviction that send chills through her. “I know who I married.”

 

XxXxX

 

**Three Weeks Later**

 

Four weeks in a row, Gendry wrote out flowery declarations of his affection for her, each week getting more grandiose than before. There hasn’t been another in a while though, almost three weeks since the last one. 

 

It’s been long enough that she thinks he’s past this… romantic love letter fixation. Like how in the past he’s become fixated on pheasant hunting, or the history of the Stormlands, or some new songs from Dorne for a few weeks, and then forgot about those things like it was nothing. 

 

But, out of the blue, one morning she sees there’s a piece of parchment with his bull’s head seal stamped on it in yellow wax, sitting in the same spot on her desk as the others.  _ Here we go again. Let’s see what Ser Florian the Bull-headed has written for me today. _

 

It starts out not unlike the others.  _ My dearest, Arya. _ One of the things she does find amazing is that while he can be fairly quiet and introverted in real life, he somehow keeps finding new ways to sing her praises, new colorful words and metaphors. This letter begins by describing the flush that rose her cheeks after she rode into the yard yesterday at breakneck speed, coloring her cheeks so they match the red leaves of the heart trees. How it contrasts with the pale skin of her arms and the hollow of her throat. How good she looked in the new riding britches she’d had made for her. 

 

And then...  _ oh. _

 

_ Oh, dear gods.  _

 

She quickly glances up and scans the room, then goes to the door as fast as she can without running, and looks down the corridor in both directions before quietly closing the door. Arya pulls off her boots and sits on the lounge, bringing her legs up underneath her and she continues to read. 

 

His letter takes a turn, and if Arya had never received a love letter before, she’s certainly never received  _ this _ kind of letter. He’s gotten very good with his words, it seems. In great detail he begins to spell out for her exactly how much he enjoys watching her spar. 

 

_ Seven hells, Arya, you really must not know the effect you have on me.  _ How he hardens almost instantly at the sight of her besting their top guards and knights in the yard for god and everyone to see.  _ I often think of what I should like to do in that situation, _ he writes.  _ I long to drag you away and take you on the ground in the yard. _ How he revels in her adrenaline after a fight, as she straddles him, strong lithe thighs bracketing his, the way she grinds herself along his length.  _ The way your muscles clench as I unbuckle the fastenings on your doublet, peel your tunic off over your head, leaving you staring down at me in only your breast band and those tight britches that make your ass look amazing.  _ He calls her his warrior. His deadly yet passionate wolf, Arya Stark. Night King Slayer, Bringer of the Dawn. 

 

Perhaps she’d have read more stories about knights and maidens if  _ this _ was what they were like. 

 

She’s positively lost in his words and swears she can  _ feel  _ everything he’s written happening as she reads it. His calloused hands skirt up her sides, across the scars on her torso, sweeping across the hard peaks of her nipples, already visible through her bindings, before he reaches around her back and undoes the knot. The feel of soft skin at the underside of her tits, her gasps when he closes his mouth around a nipple, her eyes fluttering shut as he flicks it with his tongue.  _ Gods, I can feel how wet you are already. You’re always so ready for me, aren’t you, milady? My hands go to the laces on those riding pants, undoing them and relieving you of them swiftly, because as much as I like them, I enjoy getting to taste you much more. To feel the walls of your pretty little cunt flutter around my finger, to have your hands grasping at my hair as you peak.  _

 

She can’t help it, her eyes close and she lets out a shuddering sigh, scenes of everything he’s written playing on her closed eyelids.

 

“What’re you reading, milady?”

 

When Arya opens her eyes and looks up, Gendry’s there, only a few steps in front of her. She'd been so engulfed in his writing she hadn't even heard him come in.  _ Clearly my assassin days are over, because that man is not stealthy. _

 

_ And oh,  _ she realizes with just one glance at him,  _ he knows.  _ The smirk and the cheeky tone of voice gives him away, he’s always worn his emotions straight across his face.  _ That stupid bull knows he’s won. _

 

Because she can’t see herself, but she knows how red her face has gotten. Her skin feels hot, the room feels stifling, and damn, when did her breathing get so erratic? Her heart start to beat so frantically? When did her doublet get a size too small? She’s spent enough time in brothels and pubs, or around all types of soldiers and men while traveling, she knows how they talk of women. It isn’t the words themselves that get to her, it’s that they’re written about  _ her. _

 

“Oh, I’m pretty fucking sure you know what I’m reading, my Lord.” Two can play at this game, and she knows he likes to hear himself called  _ my Lord, _ coming from her mouth especially. 

 

He chuckles and closes the last few steps between them, sitting down on the lounge, facing her with his arm across the backrest. His hand weaves itself into her braid, starting to work on untying the leather cord she’s used to tie her hair up. “And what did you think?”

 

She nods, then reaches up to pull the tie out of her hair that he was struggling with. “I think that, perhaps, I could grow to enjoy your writing.”

 

“Really?” His face lights up then, pride in himself written plainly across face, and the glint of something closer to the contents of his letter shines in his eyes. 

 

She hums in agreement. Arya leans over and sets the letter back on her desk, then swings a leg across him, settling herself in his lap, like he'd written her doing. “Maybe, I could even be of some assistance. I believe every good writer needs a muse.”

 

“What do you have in mind?”

 

She reaches up and sweeps some his bangs to the side - his hair has grown out, finally, and she prefers it this way. 

 

“I’m not good with words, so let me show you.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry not sorry about the Hamilton reference (if you caught it), or the fade to black.


End file.
